Headliners announced for Great Pennsylvania Music & Arts Celebration
Toad Creek Ramblers and others from Berks included in entertainment lineup
Bill Haley Jr. and the Comets, Hector Rosado and Steel Ave. Salsa, Grammy nominated polka advocate Alex Meixner, and Purcell’s Irish Band and Irish Stepdancers with Toad Creek Ramblers and Hoedowners and Callers (led by Keith Brintzenhoff of Kutztown) will be the music headliners at the 2018 Great Pennsylvania Music & Arts Celebration (PennMArt) at the historic Allentown Fairgrounds on Memorial Day weekend, May 26-28.
The headliners were introduced at an April 19 news conference by Lehigh Valley Underground Editor-in-Chief Gerard Longo, a volunteer member of the music planning committee of The Music Preservation Society (PAMPS), sponsor of the inaugural event.
Besides the headliners, the names of other musical performers and military bands also were announced. They include The Doug Madenford Duo (Pa Dutch), Chelsea Lynn Meyer (folk rock), and Whiskey Hollow (rocking country). The Allentown Band, Municipal Band and Pioneer Band will also be featured.
The headliners and other musical performers were selected because they represent Pennsylvania’s rich and diverse musical genres–-both traditional and emerging—that cut across generations and nationalities, according to PAMPS’CEO Siobhan “Sam” Bennett.
“We are telling the story of the Commonwealth’s music and art through the lens of its arriving cultures from the historic Pennsylvania Dutch to today’s Latino.”
The five-member combo of Bill Haley Jr. and the Comets plays popular songs from the 1950s and ‘60s, and shares inside stories and the historical context behind the songs, with an emphasis on the legendary Bill Haley’s mega-hits “Rock Around the Clock,” “See You Later, Alligator,” “Shake, Rattle and Roll” and “Skinny Minnie.” Bill Haley was not only Bill Haley, Jr.’s father, he was the father of rock “n” roll, which he fused together from R&B, blues, Dixieland, big band, country and hillbilly jive.
An accomplished percussionist, Hector Rosado has played nationwide with some of the best in the business, including jazz flautist Dave Valentine, who is noted for combining jazz with Latin music; and the “King of Latin Music” Tito Puente. He has recorded for Warner Bros., including tracks for “video jams” on the cable network BET. Besides performing, Rosado is a gifted composer and music arranger.
Grammy nominated musician and nationally acclaimed ambassador of polka music, Alex Meixner is skilled playing drums, bass, keyboards, piano accordion, button accordion and trumpet. Co-founder and the driving force behind PAMPS, the Allentown native embraces musical styles from Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Italy, Spain, Poland and America.
Purcell’s Irish Band and Irish Stepdancers with Toad Creek Ramblers and Hoedowners and Callers are two bands—one Celtic and one Pennsylvania Dutch--sharing the stage as headliners. They are the biggest draw each year at the Kutztown Folk Festival.
“These types of ethnic music reflect the deep cultural diversity of the Lehigh Valley and northeast Pennsylvania,” Meixner said at an earlier news conference. “One purpose in sponsoring the Memorial Day event is to promote and celebrate that diversity through a fusion of ethnic music, dance, food and special attractions.”
Education is an essential element of the threeday celebration, Bennett stressed.
“We are giving fellowships to musicians to entertain, but they also are expected to conduct seminars and short classes on different kinds of music and their histories.”
The Memorial Day Weekend’s musical programming was planned by a broad-based team of volunteer Lehigh Valley musicians and music historians representing Penn-
ARTS » PAGE 3